1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing device, an information processing method, and a program for the same, and more specifically to a method and a device making it possible to easily retrieve information for a desired artist from a contents-providing server on a display screen for displaying correlation between artists appearing in contents as well as to a program for the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, there has been becoming more and more popularized a method for acquiring music data into a personal computer (PC) by ripping music pieces recorded in a CD (Compact Disc) or downloading desired music pieces from a music distribution server by making use of a music distribution service or the like, and people enjoy contents such as the acquired music data with a PC or a portable device (PD).
Recently, a PC or a PD is equipped with a storage unit capable of storing a large amount of data therein, and a user can have various and diversified contents recorded in a PC. When the contents recorded in a PC or in a PD includes those not preferred by a user, however, it is troublesome for the user to retrieve contents just fitting to the user's mood from the various and diversified contents.
To overcome the problem, the present applicant has introduced into the market a product enabling easy search of contents fetched into a PC or a PD by a user. As described, for instance, in Non-patent Document 1, “Detailed information for “Walkman Series A”, “Artistlink””, by making use of the product, a user can acquire artist link information relating to the fetched music data (namely information for a classification representing an attribute of artists included in the contents via a network. Then the user can have a screen representing relation between the artists displayed on a monitor, and select contents to be listened to next time according to the user's preference.
This artist link information can be acquired from a user's friend or a server providing the information. When a user acquired the artist link information, for instance, from the user's friend and then tries to has a screen representing relations between the artists, sometimes there occurs the case in which information for an artist not relating to the contents stored in the user's PC or PD is displayed. With the additional information, the user can know presence of and relations between the artist(s) not relating to the contents stored in the user's PC or PD.